


Heart

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, F/M, internal contradictions, sleepy writings, too many damn heart metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6185596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stories of a tired woman's bruised heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart

Gentle whispers on the wind fill her ears. Her name, usually, coupled with an apology or an explanation or anything, really, as long as it's Emily's voice. Nothing else matters. 

Heavier words populate the air around her. A lie's dropped as carelessly as a cent, but worth so, so much more to the listener. She plucks them out of the air and keeps them in the hollow of her palms till they become too many and she has to deposit them on top of the burden she carries everywhere. 

It fills the space her sister left behind. It's all okay.

-:-

She stops looking. She has to. There are people all around her, clamouring for attention, there are papers to be turned in and deadlines to be met, and she's not a child anymore. She's stopped believing that one day, those winds that carry glitter to other people's happy endings will turn favourably on her. She's stopped hoping.

She's stopped loving. Her heart is far too bruised now to tolerate being held in someone else's hands. 

And it's too full. In the darkest of inks, long dried now, Emily's name is written, over and over. It's as dark as the bruises. 

-:-

Bryan doesn't steal her heart. He's never even touched it. His fingers have only ghosted around the outline of it, disturbing the air, setting off alarm bells and a ripple of pain that zips up and down her spine. 

He thinks he makes her weak in the knees. He's an idiot.

He's just a catalyst.

He opens the doors to a career she falls in love with, fucks her on a desk she's determined to earn someday, but then shows her a world that needs her in a straitjacket. 

She finds the nearest convenient excuse and dumps his sorry ass.

-:-

Neal cheats. He snatches her heart out of its safe so quickly that she barely feels the rip, doesn't even notice it's gone till she leaves it behind in his grip.

He's not careful, though. He adds to the bruises she thought were faded, hurts her in ways that she didn't even think possible, hurts her so brilliantly that his name is added to the litany on the walls, Emily, Neal, two people who just don't know how to stop leaving. It's a miracle that she manages to keep them stuffed in there. It's a miracle that they don't escape.

-:-

Those precious moments, those jewels reflecting blue, come along very rarely. 

He brushes hair out of her face or holds her to his chest or leaves a soft kiss and a little lip balm on her cheek and she feels it, just for an instant, a hand on her heart that doesn't hurt. 

And it makes no sense, he's a thief and a liar, what does he know of giving? And it makes sense, he's a thief and a liar, surely he's cracked tougher safes than the one protecting a tired woman's bruised heart.

It's only him. It's always him.


End file.
